


Betty Bobs her Hair

by Full_Of_Grace



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24779026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Full_Of_Grace/pseuds/Full_Of_Grace
Summary: In 1920s Chicago, Betty Cooper wants to show her disapproving parents just how rebellious she can be by having a wild night out at a speakeasy. The evening doesn't go as planned.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Betty Bobs her Hair

**Author's Note:**

> I was like "what if La Bonne Nuit was a real speakeasy?" and this happened. This may or may not turn into a series... I have a lot of ideas about what Riverdale characters would be like in the 1920s. I hope you enjoy and I apologize for any sort of historical mistakes. Title inspired by that of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story 'Bernice Bobs her Hair'.

Betty Cooper did not have a habit of wandering around the city at night. But what was tonight for if not breaking habits? She’d had the cab driver drop her off a block from the address Archie had given her, as he’d suggested, but couldn’t help but take the short walk a little slower than entirely necessary. She so rarely went out. There were all manner of people going about their business around her, well dressed and the less so, men and women, some walking with purpose, and some meandering at a pace closer to her own. Though Betty’d lived in Chicago all her life, she’d very rarely been into the city proper in the late in the evening. And never on her own.

Despite her wide-eyed observation, she made it to the address quickly enough. It was, as Arch had said it’d be, an unassuming mid-level restaurant wedged next door to a hat shop. Through the windows Betty could see people eating and chatting, and she moved quickly away from the front, nervous to be seen, though at the moment she wasn’t doing anything illegal. But just for the moment, she thought, turning into the alley on the restaurant’s left side, finding the employee’s entrance. 

She checked the slip of paper with Archie’s instructions again, then knocked on the door three times. There was no response for nearly a minute, and Betty’s mind flew, the little voice that sounded terribly like her mother insisting she should turn on her heel and go home, climb back through the window she had snuck out of, go to sleep, and forget about this whole misadventure. But she dug her fingers into her palms and stood still. If her parents thought she was so damn rebellious, she’d be rebellious. 

Her fingernails had nearly broken through her skin by the time there was any response, and she jerked back in surprise when a little slot appeared in the door, a pair of dark eyes staring at her judgmentally. “It’s an employee’s entrance, miss, and you don’t look like an employee.” 

“I could dress up like a fishmonger,” Betty recited, “and be employed in monging fish.” 

The slot closed again, and the door opened up. The man to whom the dark eyes belonged poked his head out of the door frame, looked up and down the alley to check there was nobody else there, and gestured that she follow him inside. Betty smoothed her dress and stepped into the building. 

She was in the kitchen of a restaurant, where three chefs were working busily preparing food for the diners out front. She dodged around then, trailing the man who’d brought her in. She followed him into a large pantry storeroom, and watched in amazement as he pulled on a shelf and a portion of the wall swung out. She followed down a long narrow staircase, which had yet another door at the bottom, which her guide knocked on; another slot opened up, and another man opened that door. God, what a complicated process. 

But when she passed through the last door, with a nod from the quiet man who’d escorted her there, she could appreciate the secrecy. It was one thing to know what a speakeasy was intellectually, it was quite another to visit one. Despite the lack of windows, the massive underground room was as bright as a park at noon, shiningly electric. The air smelled strongly of tobacco smoke, and there must have been eighty people in the room, perched in groups at the tables dotted around, or on the dance floor that dominated the space, or at the bar on the far side of the room. Betty had never seen a proper bar. There was even a stage, where it seemed like the singer was taking a brief break, though the jazz pianist was still tapping merrily at the keys. 

It was loud and bright and beautiful. It was a real party. The nervous butterflies in Betty’s stomach turned into birds, soaring through her. She felt giddy with euphoria, and she hadn’t even drunk anything. But she was still hovering at the door, gaping like a fish. Looking too out of place at a joint like this was not a good idea. She made her way along the side of the room, heading towards the bar, trying to take in as much as she could without looking like an utter imbecile. As she went, the singer started up again, her smooth bright voice ringing out over the dancers. 

Betty finally got to the bar and took a seat away from other patrons. A tall, muscular young man was working the bar, and flashed Betty a wide smile as she took a seat. “Hey doll, what’ll it be?” He asked her, while delivering a martini to a man down the bar. 

Now here was a problem. Betty was as unused to ordering liquor as she was to having strange men call her doll. “Give me whatever you like the best.” She said, smiling in a way she hoped was convincing. 

The bartender gave her a little salute and began mixing up several different liquids into a glass. He put on quite the show, flipping bottles and peeling an orange with vigor. The result was as pretty as she was sure it’d be delicious. It smelled sweet. She was about to take a sip before a voice interrupted her. 

“Reggie, don’t give her that. It’ll go right through her. She’ll melt.” Betty whirled around to see that a young woman around her own age had come right up beside her without her noticing. 

The stranger slipped into the seat next to her. She had fashionably short wavy black hair, a lovely olive complexion, and her dark red lips were split into a welcoming smile. She wore a beaded purple dress and a string of pearls. “A light highball for the lady, Reginald,” she called to the bartender, who rolled his eyes. 

“Sure thing boss.” He said, and began preparing something substantially simpler. 

“Not your boss!” The stranger laughed, her hair swishing around her face.

“Sure,” he said “you’re just ‘supervising’–– like that doesn’t make you the boss.” He slid the new drink over to Betty, who just blinked at the unexpected scene. 

“You don’t mind, do you?” The not-boss-just-supervising woman said, grabbing the first drink the bartender had made for Betty. “It’s just I get the impression that you aren’t used to the harder stuff. Thought you’d like an easier introduction. Reggie here makes them all a bit strong. Don’t worry, I won’t make you pay for this one.” She lifted the beverage as if to make a toast. 

“It’s alright.” Betty said, feeling both annoyed and relieved. She took a sip of the second drink, and resisted her immediate urge to spit. “How’d you know I… wasn’t used to this, like you said.” She took another sip, swallowing through the burn. 

“Because I have incredible powers of perception. I’m a psychic, actually.” The woman said. “For example, I can tell you this is the first Speak you’ve ever been to. You’re so green, you probably don’t even know who I am.”

“Slow down, Maggie Fox.” Betty said, the annoyance overtaking the relief. “Am I supposed to know who you are?”

“Name’s Veronica Lodge. My father owns this joint –– technically. I’m the supervisor, he almost never comes down. Busy on the north side.” 

“So you’re the boss, like he said.” Betty gestured to the bartender. Lodge, where had she heard that name? Someone who owned a speakeasy was likely rich enough to be in the papers. 

“I guess, though I’m no fan of that title. And you are?”

“Betty.” She considered giving her last name, then decided to leave it at just that. She was in an illegal establishment, after all, though Veronica Lodge’s initially off putting extroversion was quickly growing on her. She certainly had her charms, Betty reflected, seeing how wide Veronica’s smile grew after hearing Betty’s name. “And really, what about me tipped you off?”

“Well, outside of your baffled expression and struggle over what to order, it was your hair.”

“My hair?” Betty automatically reached up to the pinned up plait atop her head.

“Nobody who regularly frequents this sort of establishment has worn it like that since ‘05, I’d bet.” Veronica paused for a second. “Not that you look bad. You’re lovely. It’s just not  _ en vogue _ , you know.” 

“My parents don’t want me to cut it.” Betty explained. “They think it’s vulgar.”

Veronica gave her a look. “So, your folks won’t let you crop your hair, but they’ll let you visit  _ La Bonne Nuit _ ?”

“Where?” Betty said, “ _ The good night _ ?”

“ _ Here _ . The Speak.” Veronica pointed emphatically at the bar. “You don’t even know the name of this place? How’d you even get here?” 

“A friend gave me the address. You’re right that my parents would pop if they caught wind of my being here… this isn’t the sort of scene they’d approve of.”   
  


“That’s clear.” Veronica frowned. “You poor thing. So you scuttle off to a speakeasy under the cover of night to just get a taste of excitement.”

“Sorta.” Betty halfheartedly tried a few more sips of alcohol. “Would it sound pathetic if I said this was my attempt at rebellion? They already think I’m this… failure of a daughter. I just wanted to cement the image. Come back at two in the morning smelling of booze and give them a real shock.”

“What did you do to turn the bluenoses against you? You seem like a shining star of respectability.” 

“You’d be surprised.” Betty said, then avoided the question. “I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?”

Veronica nodded solemnly. “You are here.” She knocked back the rest of her drink. “Hey, I have an idea. Some real rebellion for you.”

“Oh?” Betty said. She couldn’t say she wasn’t curious. This night had so far been substantially less dramatic than she’d hoped. 

“It’ll all be jake. Follow me.” Veronica smirked, and Betty let herself be pulled from her chair after her. They went behind the bar. Betty remembered the drinks and reached for her purse, but Veronica called to the bartender as they passed him. “Hey Reg, mark down those two drinks as being on the house, won’t you?”

Betty found herself in what had to be the speakeasy’s storeroom, Veronica closing the door behind them. There were crates full of bottles stacked high around the room. Veronica turned an empty crate on it’s edge and pointed Betty towards it while searching a shelf for something. Unsure what else to do, Betty sat on the crate, knocking her sensible shoes against the wood. After a moment Veronica returned from the shelf with a gleaming pair of scissors and a small hand comb.

“Oh wow.” Betty said.

At that precise moment, Veronica said “it’s brilliant! I’ll cut your hair.”

She caught onto Betty’s hesitance and pouted. “I’m no hairdresser maybe, but I’m pretty good with scissors. I’ve done this for a few of my friends, and they all turned out swell. And hair grows.”

“It’s just it’s rather obvious.” Betty said. “My parents would definitely notice.” 

“And here I thought the whole point was to make them notice. Oh well.” Veronica turned back to the shelf.

“Wait!” Betty cried. “I want you to cut it.” She realized as she said it that she really meant it. She wanted, no,  _ needed _ a real change. She was nineteen years old. She couldn’t just do whatever her parents wanted for the rest of her life. That’s how she’d turn into her mother, stuffy and cold and barely repressing her dissatisfaction with her situation in life.

Veronica beamed, and rushed to stand behind Betty, placing the scissors on the crate beside her. She began to unpin Betty’s hair, letting the braid fall down to where it trailed her lower back. 

“You have beautiful hair.” Veronica murmured, starting to unbraid the plait. She was surprisingly gentle. Betty closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of Veronica’s soft fingers and the smell of her perfume, which was a dark floral scent Betty had trouble placing. The giddy butterflies in her stomach were back, twisting in anticipation of the haircut, a true rebellion. 

It didn’t take as long as Betty thought it might. There was the first quick chop, where Veronica lobbed off the bulk of her hair in a few fast snips, which struck Betty as not exactly professional and made her open her eyes again. The lightness of it was like a shock to her skull. But that was followed by several minutes of trimming, Veronica circling around her with a thoughtful expression, and Betty attempted to make conversation.    
  
“Your father owns several… establishments?” She asked.

“My father works in appliance manufacturing,” Veronica said, the slightest edge in her tone. “Lodge Industries ships all over the Midwest. We have many locations in Chicago.” Her voice lightened and she joked. “Daddy’s a Chicago institution, though not an old one.”   
  


“Mhm.” Betty resisted her desire to nod, instead staying still and staying quiet as Veronica kept working on her hair. It wasn’t too much longer when her careful hands stopped in their work, and the scissors were once more deposited on the crate.

“Finished, I think.” Veronica said, and gave Betty’s hair a last few pats. Betty stood and shook her head back and forth, marveling at how her hair swished past her face, just like Veronica’s did.

Veronica moved to stand right across from her, then reached out to touch Betty’s face, tilting her head back and forth. “You look spectacular.” She said softly, her face only inches from Betty’s. Betty was distracted by the lighter flecks in Veronica’s dark eyes, the slightest smear of her crimson lipstick. “The cut compliments your features perfectly. There’s a mirror in the restroom you can look at, and I could try to change it, if you don’t like it.” She withdrew her hand.

“No,” Betty said immediately, her face feeling strangely cold, “no I’m sure it’s perfect. You’re so talented, I mean I bet you’re so talented, I––”

And that was when Veronica kissed her, the hand back on her cheek, that lipsticked mouth leaning in. Betty was hyper-aware of every part of herself, her cheeks flaming, her stomach tingling, her lips,  _ her lips _ , her lips on fire against Veronica’s. She wanted to move her twitching hands towards Veronica, but just as she was trying to, Veronica withdrew. It had been two seconds at most. It had been a lifetime.

“I. I um.” Betty said, feeling like her mind had entirely vacated her body. 

Veronica was immediately apologetic, stepping backwards, looking distinctly less composed than she’d been all evening. “Look Betty, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, I just, I–”

Betty lurched towards her without thinking of what she was doing. She grabbed Veronica’s face and pressed their mouths together again. Veronica immediately relaxed into the kiss, and reached up a hand to tangle in Betty’s newly short hair, the other going to her back. 

Betty did not have much experience kissing. Archie, once when she was eight. A couple of awkward attempts with various highschool boyfriends. But this was something else. This, Betty imagined, was the sort of kiss that people were talking about in novels and in love songs, those kisses that steal all the air from you, that fill your whole being with light. Her world had turned over on its axis. 

Quite completely, she realized as they separated for the second time. Veronica was flushed and wild-eyed and incandescently beautiful, and very much a  _ woman _ who Betty had met in a speakeasy an hour ago. If any kiss could be life-changing… The anxious feeling rose in her chest again. 

But then Veronica laughed and smiled, and Betty forgot about all that for a moment. “Oh well then,” Veronica said. “Oh goodness, I suppose neither of us was expecting that.” She let out a pleased huff of air. “It was good for you?”

“Yes.” Betty said. “Very good.” She didn’t know what to say. This night was supposed to be her grand rebellion, but had turned out much grander. She reached a hand up to pull on her braid only to realize that it wasn’t there, then laughed in a sort of vague hysteria. “Oh my god, my hair.”

“It looks so beautiful.” Veronica said again, and then shook her head as if to clear it. “Look, it’s getting pretty late, and as much as I’d like you to stay, if you want to get back to your parents’ place at two in the morning smelling like liquor like you planned, you’ll probably have to start heading out.”

“You’re right.” Betty nodded, smoothing out her skirt while trying to collect herself, then dug her nails into her palm. Maybe Veronica had decided it’d been a horrible mistake, and was trying to get rid of her as quickly as possible. 

“If your parents don’t kill you,” Veronica said, and Betty looked back up at her, “for bobbing your hair, I mean. If you ever get the chance…” she turned her dark eyes away, the post kiss nervousness back again “I’d love it if you could sneak away to  _ La Bonne Nuit _ again. You’ll always be welcome.” 

“I’ll try,” Betty said, her nervous expression splitting into what was probably a ridiculous grin. “I’d love to come back. You have a great… atmosphere here.”

Veronica snorted. Just then the door to the storage room opened, and they jerked further away from each other than they already had been. The tall bartender stepped into the room. 

“Hey Ronnie, hey new gir–– huh” he said, thrown off by Betty’s haircut. He then noticed the pile of blonde hair near the crate. “What the hell happened in here?” 

“Exactly what it looks like, Reggie. I decided to help Betty here fit in a little better.” Veronica said, shifting into a tone so casual that if Betty hadn’t just been the one kissing her she never could have guessed what had happened.

“It looks good.” Reggie nodded approvingly, then frowned at the hair. “I guess you’ll want me to sweep that up later.”

“If you don’t mind.” Veronica said. “Now, Reginald, why're you back here in the first place?”

“Mr. Grande’s here. He said he’d arranged to speak with you tonight.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “About business stuff.”

Veronica smiled tightly. “So he had.” She turned to Betty apologetically. “I’m afraid this must be goodbye for tonight.”

Betty followed Veronica and Reggie out of the storeroom and watched with an unexpected pang as Veronica went to talk to a slim Italian man who was sitting and tapping his feet impatiently at a nearby table. She left the space behind the bar and retraced her path to the speakeasy’s entrance, still feeling a little bit out of her body. 

She went out through the door, up the stairs, closed the secret passage behind her, nodded at the man who’d escorted her there, dodged the chefs in the kitchen, who now seemed to be finishing cleaning up after the last of dinner. She exited the employee's entrance and found herself once more standing in the alley. 

The stars winked down from the sky, and the streetlights seemed more welcoming than they ever had in her life. The world was beautiful, she realized abruptly, and she was certain she was beautiful too, though she hadn’t even checked her hair in a mirror on the way out. She shook her head and felt the lightness of her new short hair. 

She walked out of the alley and into the cool Chicago night. 


End file.
